St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-09-11

motion by the impact. To knock ship
on and leave aShip in its place is very fine
playing, and it is not often achieved.
The board upon which the playing is
done is planned smooth and perfectly
level, but it is not polished. 1t is COW
cred with fine, dry sand, and old players
are very particular about the quality of
that material. 1t must be like sand and
perfectly dry. Sand that has been used
for half an hour becomes useless. The
particles lose their sharpness through
the constant attrition, and the sand is
then dead. No good player will play on
dead sand. He cannot gauge his play
on 1t at all. When match is being
played the sand is changed frequently,
say every quarter of an hour or so. AL
though the game has fallen into deca-
dence in i'll this city, there are some old
ScOtchmen here who keep it up
and swear that it beats billiards
and pool and everything else all hallow.
A lot of them will get down into one of
the places where shuttle boards can be
found and have a Draw time at it for
whole evening. One of the accompani-
ments. of course. is hot Scotch,
especially in the winter. and the hard
headed old lads will sip their steaming
toddy and gravely watch close game
with all the earneStneS5 Imaginable,
getting intensely excited VIII II lucky
player makes ship. If you want to
see fun and hear some good old broad
accent, go and watch lot of the clans
men playing shuttle board.'' o
There is another foreign game that is
played great deal III this city and is
somewhat akin to shuttle board: 1t
might almost be considered the national
game of Italy. although it is played all
through Spain also. In itself it is called
Bolli, a simple and sensible apellatiOn,
but when Spaniard speaks of it or in
vlteS friend TO a game he has to twist
his tongue around BotXas. 1t is the
sane game under either name and there
is lot of fun in it. Any number
from two to eight may be
engaged in game and opportll-
nifty IS given for the exercise not only
of individual play, but team work as we'll
1t is played out of DOORS. and from tie
activity of its devotees and the enthusi-
aSm they manifest in their work it would
be considered delightful exercise.
There are several places in the city
where a little patch of ground has been
secured for the use of this sport. Few
OF them are known at all to any beside
the players. for it is usually the back
yards OF tenement houses that are thus
converted into play grounds. One of
the best is in the block bounded by
West Seventieth and West Sixty-ninth
streets, Eleventh avenue and the Hud-
sol river. This block is not entirely
built up, and what few hOu ses are there
now are, with one or two exceptions, of
wood. They stand there waiting to be
torn down and replaced with big sub
stantial buildings of brick and stone.
Entirely concealed from view of any
street, nesteds against the one large
apartment house of the vicinity, is
bolli ground. 1t is about sixty
feet long and twenty feet wide.
All venturesome grass is care
fully pulled up from this plot,
which is inclesed by plank guard OF
rail, after the manner of billiard table.
The rail is about eight inches high.
The surface of the ground is not rolled
as smooth as might be expected, but it
is hard. Much of the fun of the game